18 October 2005

Robert Hass

[from Field Guide by Robert Hass]

Fall

Amateurs, we gathered mushroomsnear shaggy eucalyptus groveswhich smelled of camphor and the fog-soaked earth.Chanterelles, puffballs, chicken-of-the-woods,we cooked in wine or butter,beaten eggs or sour cream,half expecting to bekilled by a mistake. "Intense perspiration,"you said late at night,quoting the terrifying field guidewhile we lay tangled in our sheets and heavy limbs,"is the first symptom of attack."

Friends called our aromatic fungi"liebestoads" and only ate the onesthat we most certainly survived.Death shook us more than oncethose days and floating backit felt like life. Earth-wet, slithery,we drifted toward the names of things.Spore prints littered our tablelike nervous stars. Rotting capsgave off a musky smell of loam.